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 Inspectors. Sir George Grey said that the suit was brought, not under the Factory Act, but Lord Campbell's; but the Judge told the Attorney-General, on the trial, that under Lord Campbell's Act he had no case, and that, but for the 21st section of the Factory Act, he would be out of Court. "The desire of the widow herself" was certainly necessary to the prosecution; but when the Factory Inspectors had excited that desire by their representations, and obtained her sanction, the whole affair was taken out of her hands. Here intervened the stretch of law and power by the Secretary of State, which placed the respective parties in the following position:—

Messrs. Wild were liable to injury by a verdict either way. If there had been a verdict in their favour, they must have paid the widow's costs as well as their own,—she being a pauper. In case of an unfavourable verdict, they would have had to pay damages in addition to all the costs. As it ended, the government must pay their costs out of some public fund. If the plaintiff had won the suit, she would have been the Factory Inspector or the Secretary of State. If she had lost it, she would have been the pauper widow Ashworth. Surely a state of affairs which induces sharp practice, and a stretch of law and power